Services

Operational Support for KM Program Rollout

When our clients do not have the required personnel, Iknow can provide temporary staffing to perform KM-related roles. Many of Iknow’s senior consultants have led internal knowledge management functions, and bring a wealth of experience in carrying out the day-to-day tasks of supporting KM processes.

Business Value

Iknow’s operational support services are valuable because our clients can obtain immediate staffing for important KM roles. Iknow’s personnel resources are highly qualified and have extensive practical experience. Temporary staffing sustains the momentum created during initial KM projects while permanent staff are being recruited and/or trained.

Deliverables

Iknow’s deliverables for operational support are closely tied to each client’s specific requirements. As described above, they could include assistance in almost any area of KM program design, development, and implementation.

Training

Training is always an important component of a knowledge management implementation roadmap. Typically, training needs vary by audience, and training programs differ for end users, systems administrators, and dedicated KM support staff.

Iknow has significant experience in designing and delivering effective training programs. Iknow designs and delivers programs to support single software product deployments to enterprise-wide knowledge management initiatives. We design and deliver custom training programs that use all types of training channels and formats.

Business Value

Iknow’s training programs ensure that staff at all levels can gain the skills and know-how to effectively use the new KM processes and tools, thereby increasing the ROI from KM expenditures.

Deliverables

Iknow’s deliverables could include:

  • Training strategy, typically differing by stakeholder group
  • Training content development
  • Training program delivery

Cultural Change Management

An effective approach to change management issues and risks is critically important to the success of KM program implementation. In fact, the reasons most often cited for why KM implementations did not deliver expected benefits are organizational and cultural issues. Some of the reasons include failure to integrate KM into everyday working practices, insufficient communications, a lack of training and/or time to learn new systems and processes, and a lack of clear and sustained executive leadership.

Business Value

Sustained KM success depends on knowledge sharing and collaboration becoming embedded in the organization’s cultural fabric. A strong organizational change management program is a critical lever for making this happen. The change management program needs to be developed and executed in parallel with the other activities in a KM implementation roadmap, and given equal or greater attention by senior management.

Deliverables

In parallel with other implementation work streams, Iknow works with clients on the planning and implementation of people-related organizational change management and institutionalization activities, including stakeholder assessments, change management planning, communications planning, training, rewards and recognition programs, and KM organization and role development.

Rewards and Recognition Programs

Highly visible rewards and recognition programs are a great way to reinforce the organization’s commitment to knowledge management initiatives. Appropriate choices for these programs vary significantly based on each organization’s culture and previous experiences, so we are careful to develop programs that are highly customized for each client’s unique situation.

Business Value

Effective rewards and recognition programs can be a key element in both launching and institutionalizing a knowledge-management initiative. Rewards and recognition programs are important in the early phases when the primary goal is to gain traction, as well as help maintain momentum in more established KM initiatives. Well-designed rewards and recognition programs encourage end-user knowledge contributions, system usage, and collaboration; promote awareness of KM to nonusers; and demonstrate KM involvement to senior management—all critical factors for building a sustainable knowledge culture.

Deliverables

Iknow works with clients to develop customized rewards and recognition programs. Our deliverables typically include all aspects of rewards and recognition program design, development, and implementation.

KM Performance Management, Metrics, and KPIs

Successful knowledge management programs yield a variety of business benefits. KM programs can produce operational improvements in an organization’s productivity, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness, as well as improve internal culture and employee satisfaction.

Business Value

A comprehensive performance management framework plays a major role in sustaining the success of KM programs and ensure continued senior management support. Ongoing performance reporting enables successes to be recognized and built upon. Ongoing measurement also helps identify KM-related business process issues before they become serious risks.

Deliverables

Iknow develops comprehensive and customized modified balanced scorecards for evaluating the performance of KM programs, and the governance policies and infrastructure to support ongoing KM program evaluation.

KM Value Analysis and Business Case Development

Iknow is often asked to help identify and develop a clear and compelling return on investment (ROI) for KM projects. Iknow will work with senior business, financial, and information technology management to develop the business rationale to justify the KM investment and to evaluate its overall financial impact. Our process typically follows four steps: defining the current state, defining the future state, quantifying the benefits and costs of moving to the future state, and then summarizing these to create the business case.

Business Value

Resource investments in knowledge management must generate a financial return. Preparing a strong economic justification to support KM investment is essential to achieve full management buy-in and ongoing internal support.

Deliverables

Iknow has worked with numerous clients to develop business cases for knowledge management. Our teams work with clients to create comprehensive business cases that demonstrate a clear and compelling ROI for the KM project or program.

Institutional Memory

Institutional memory is an approach for developing the comprehensive “story” of an organization. The approach emphasizes the connections between significant events, decisions, milestones, projects, and other key actions and how they relate to, or support, broad strategic and organizational themes.

Business Value

Institutional memory programs can greatly enhance the engagement of staff by providing them with a stronger connection to the organization, its thinking, and its progress. Institutional memory programs also enhance organizational and cultural alignment over the long term.

Deliverables

Iknow’s deliverables include the strategy and executional support of all aspects of an institutional memory program. The deliverables can range from the development of the integrated story and associated content to the production of this content in a variety of multimedia formats.

Benchmarking

Iknow’s benchmarking services highlight the approaches of other organizations that have successfully implemented knowledge management programs with the lessons learned from their experiences. Our benchmarking services assess our clients’ KM strategies, policies, practices, and systems against comparable organizations in their industry sector and against recognized leaders in the KM field to identify performance gaps and opportunities for improvement. 

Business Value

Iknow’s benchmarking services benefit greatly from our senior team’s KM leadership and operational experience—we know where to look for the most relevant ideas and insights that can improve our clients’ KM programs and initiatives, and that will work best in practice. Effective benchmarking can significantly accelerate KM strategy development and avoid wasted effort on implementing policies and practices that won’t translate well to a different organizational setting.

Deliverables

Iknow provides benchmarking results either as a stand-alone report or as part of a larger deliverable, such as a current-state assessment, strategy, or roadmap.

Analytics and Big Data

We live in an era of data overload. The volume, rate, and variety of data types and formats, coupled with the speed with which it can be accessed and searched, put incredible amounts of useful information at our fingertips. Data sets are growing in size, in part, because of the wide array of information-collection devices, such as mobile phones, software logs, cameras, radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers, and wireless sensor networks.

Using this information in a business context is a challenge. We typically break the problem down into three phases.

Business Value

Careful analysis of large data sets can uncover new and unexpected correlations. Better decisions based on these insights can yield greater operational efficiencies, better resource allocation, lower costs, and reduced risk.

Deliverables

Iknow's deliverables can include:

  • Big data strategy
  • Data source identification, procurement, and integration
  • Big data pilots and prototypes
  • Analysis of complex data sets.

Ongoing Maintenance and Support

A critical element of any technology implementation is ongoing maintenance and support. This includes training of end users and system administrators, staffing of tiered support levels, the setup of user-feedback programs, and the rollout of relevant content, communications, and messaging. The initial 30 days following the KM system launch are the most critical for ensuring that the maintenance and support programs are in place and functional. Close coordination between the business, IT, HR, and KM functions is critical.

Business Value

Ongoing maintenance and support processes are essential for ensuring end-user adoption.

Deliverables

Iknow’s deliverables can include ongoing system maintenance, a system support strategy and plan, training plans, user-feedback programs, and a platform enhancement plan.

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